Dec 29 Milton Glaser, reaching for the stars

His Design and Personality seminar at School of Visual Arts changed my life.

His work stands up to the test of time.

His Dylan poster is as fresh today as when he created it in the 60s.

His brain. It never stops. It is a deep reservoir of wonder.

He gives. To everyone. He has so much to give. And he is not done.

We all feel the love. And the passion. We all are continually amazed by his beautiful work.

For Milton, it is never enough to simply create. He's wired to reinvent, every time he hits the page.

He is cerebral and humanistic at the same time. He is generous with his mind.

There were generations that came before me, and generations that continue to come after me, that are equally influenced by his powerful passion, his steadfast drive, his challenges to turn our creative selves inside out and upside down. He knows the only way to create, to find something new, is to be vulnerable, to be willing to look continually deeper within ourselves.

Ideas. Ideas are so important. Art is empty without ideas. He imparts that from his very core.

His image for MadMen startles in it's modernity...is as fresh as the Dylan image was fifty years ago...his use of color and patterning sublime.

He loves to tell the story of his early days realizing his gift for drawing. He was sitting at the kitchen table at his family's apartment in the Bronx. There was a brown paper bag laying on the table. He declared that he could pull a rabbit out of the bag to the skepticism of others at the table. So Milton picked up a pencil and drew a rabbit on the bag. Like magic.

When looking at The Work section of his website, miltonglaser.com, one finds oneself muttering out loud "Oh, yeah, he did that. And he did that. And I forgot he did that. And that"... Seemingly endless. His output is astonishing.

Once, when I was sitting eating an appetizer in the Trattoria Dell'Arte, a great restaurant across from Carnegie Hall where the likes of author Fran Leibowitz and film director Mike Nichols held court, I looked up at the gigantic white plaster sculptures of a nose, a mouth, an eye, that were hanging on the wall above the bar. They were beautiful and raw. I realized they represented the senses one uses when eating great food. I wondered aloud to myself "Wow, I wonder who designed this place?" Milton. Of course. Bold, sensual, and beautiful.